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How can I get involved?

Join the mailing list or get involved as a course organizer and create a new course. If you have an idea, you can contact us directly.

 

Can I get formal credit for studying at the P2PU?

Not right now, but we are working on options to make that possible in the future. Have a look at the accreditation page for more information.

 

How much does it cost to study at the P2PU?

Studying is free. After the pilot phase, the community will decide if it makes sense to charge a very small sign-up fee. We would like participants to be committed and willing to invest the time needed, and a small fee may help to solidify that commitment. In addition, there are some course organizers who can't afford to volunteer their time, but would like to be involved - a small part of the fee could be used to offset their time. However, our primary motivation for P2PU is unrestricted access to high-quality, peer-learning experiences on topics of interest, so we will never restrict access to the educational resources themselves.

 

Can I still sign up?

Sign up has closed for the first cycle, and the response was overwhelming. Some of the courses might be run again, and we will offer many more courses in the future.

 

When do courses start?

9 September 2009.

 

There must be some costs. Who is paying for all this?

P2PU is largely run by volunteers, however we have also gotten seed funding to cover some basic costs from both the Hewlett Foundation, and the Shuttleworth Foundation. The project is also being incubated at the University of California at Irvine. Thanks to ever cheaper web-hosting there are few direct costs involved in setting up an online learning community. Of course it also takes a lot of time and effort to make this happen, which we have put in as volunteers.

 

What technology are you using for this site?

Our first site was a Google Site. We switched to a pbworks.com wiki for the pilot phase, but are working on an open source, self-hosted solution for the future. We wanted to get the pilot underway as quickly as possible, and technology development takes a long time, especially for a small project like ours. 

 

How is this different from an traditional online course?

It's different from traditional online university courses becuase it's peer learning, not instructor led - the group learns from each other.

How do you decide which courses are going to be offered?

For the first round we worked quite carefully with a small group of people we trusted.In the future there will be a process of bringing new people and

courses into the community. We will also offer a course for people who want to run a course.

How about accreditation? How is that working?

Some people are already getting accreditation - for example, a group of students taking our Land Restoration Course have already been given the green light for credit!  The P2PU course will be their "reforestation 101" for a 3 year leadership program they are beginning in a reforestation project in India. Their 3 year leadership program does count for credit at some western universities.

Other individuals are trying to organise accreditation on a case-by-case basis from the institutions they are affiliated with.

We at p2pu are interested in a community reputation that could also offer a viable alternative to the traditional accreditation systems.

Is p2pu trying to replace traditional universities?

Nope - not at all! p2pu is an alternative, not really meant to replace traditional campus-based universities. We all went to university and wouldn't want to miss the experience.

Why are you doing this? Isn't this a lot of work?

We are all passionate about learning, and this seemed like a fun wayto build something that brings together like-minded people and

increase access to education. We saw that there were more and more OERs, but for many individuals that wasn't enough. Without the social component and a bit of structure and support, it was too hard to work through the materials on one's own. And, of course, it's a whole lot of fun!